Saturday, 16 August 2008

A larger-than-lifesize bust of the empress Faustina, wife of the emperor Antoninus Pius, has just come to light during excavations at Sagalassos in south-west Turkey. For some reason, the Thai Indian News imagined that "archaeologists in Rome" had found the head, but the BBC have the correct location!

Annia Galeria Faustina, surnamed Major ("the Elder") to differentiate her from her homonymous daughter, was born around AD 100, into a patrician family in Spain. She died young in AD 141, whereupon she was deified as Diva Faustina. The charity of the puellae Faustinianae (the "girls of Faustina") was founded in her memory, giving us some insight into this wonderful woman's morality.